Endless Stinking Mud!

They call it flood recovery, but what stays with you is the endless, stinking mud.

When I joined SES, I didn’t have any practical skills. I was just a housewife, and I wasn’t sure what I could offer. But I saw a recruitment ad and thought, what’s stopping me? 

So, I decided to give it a go.

I was lucky enough to get into the first intake. Some people wait years to get in.

On my very first night, I turned up thinking it was training. Then I found out it had been cancelled. Oops… But the crews there were great.  “We’re heading out on the boat if you want to come.”

So, without a moment of hesitation I put on a life jacket and went out with them.

First night, straight on the boat. I kind of fell into it by accident… but I was hooked straight away.

I love being on the flood boats but there are so many things we do at SES.

Disasters are a big part of the job and they can be hard physically and mentally.

I remember one job on a deployment up north. We were sent to a house deep in the rainforest. As we drove in, we’d been warned to watch for wildlife, especially cassowaries. After the cyclone, everything had been disturbed, and there were a lot of distressed and displaced animals.

The driveway had just been cleared, and when we got to the house… it was incredible. A beautiful place, set high in the trees, all glass, but not a single pane was left. It had all been blown out.

The owner was standing there saying, “All my chooks were over there… but they’re gone.” Everything had just been wiped out by the cyclone.

Inside, she told us wildlife had started coming in: snakes, spiders, all sorts, just trying to find shelter.

Then we looked out the kitchen window and saw a big water tank… and beside it was a cassowary.

He was panting, poor thing was clearly stressed and suffering.

The lady had been feeding him cat food, trying to help. She thought she was doing the right thing, but it can be dangerous for them.

We explained gently, “Please don’t feed him. We’ll let the right people know.” Even though he looked calm, cassowaries can be incredibly dangerous if they feel threatened.

You just felt for him. He’d been through so much.

Driving home afterwards, we saw the scale of it all. Power poles snapped like matchsticks. Whole sections of rainforest flattened. It was like nothing you’d ever seen.

Everything was just gone.

Bundaberg was another deployment I’ll never forget.

Even getting there was an adventure. At one point our driver cut a little too close in front of a semi-trailer. It was terrifying. We pulled into a fuel station soon after and the team leader asked if I’d take over driving. I was like, “Sure, happy to.”

But honestly, we laughed the whole way up. That’s what it’s like, you’re doing serious work in times of disaster, but there’s a camaraderie and positivity in your crew. It’s the team that keeps you going.

When we arrived, the reality hit. Bundaberg had been smashed. Everything was coated in thick mud. Houses were filled with it. No one had predicted it, but you just never know what Mother Nature will throw at you.

I remember driving across the bridge for the first time and seeing a huge section of ground caved in, with a house hanging over the edge. You just stop and think… wow.

A lot of the houses had no one there, so we’d go in and start shoveling, clearing everything out. Furniture, personal belongings, everything dragged out the front. Some houses had so much mud inside they had to drill holes through the floors just to wash it out.

It can be one of the hardest parts of the job. Everyone handles it differently. Sometimes homeowners are there, sometimes they’re not. When they are, you make sure to talk to them:

“Is there anything you want to keep? What should we do with this?”

You include them as much as you can, because they’ve already been through so much. A big part of it is trust. You’re coming into someone’s home at one of the worst times in their life so they need to know they can trust you. You can’t break that.

There were dead animals too. The smell was terrible. It was hard, exhausting work. I’ll never forget the endless, stinking mud.

But there were also moments that stayed with you for better reasons.

I remember finding personal items in one house, what seemed to be important family things, then tracking down the owner to return them. He was so thankful. He said,

“Getting these back means everything. It makes all this okay.”

And that’s why I volunteer.

Sometimes it’s just turning up, being a friendly face, someone people can talk to, someone they can trust.

It can be heartbreaking, watching people sift through mud to find anything they can save. But in those small moments, when you help make their day just a little bit better… that’s what makes it all worth it.

On the tough days, we also have each other.

One day during the Bundaberg deployment, we finished completely covered in mud from head to toe. Instead of heading straight back, we stopped by the beach. Our team leader said, “Take your boots off. We’re going in.”

So, there we were, still in bright orange gear, walking straight into the ocean to wash off.

People on the shore were staring, taking photos. It must have looked ridiculous.

But it was perfect.

My own life experiences help.

I feel that I can relate to what people are going through, because I’ve been flooded myself back in 2011. Ours was only downstairs, but even then, you’re standing there in the water thinking, where do I even start? what do I do now?

Your mind just isn’t clear. It’s overwhelming.

I even had strangers helping me. One man offered space under his house on higher ground to store our things. At the time, I didn’t think twice. Later I realised I’d basically handed over all our furniture to someone I didn’t know.

But that’s what it’s like when a disaster hits. You’re just trying to get through it the best you can.

That experience helps me understand, even in a small way, how people feel when we arrive to help.

When Cyclone Yasi hit, I remember arriving at the beach side caravan park, seeing empty spaces where caravans should have be. Some destroyed others sitting on top of each other, like discarded toys. And some just gone??

Then came the Lismore floods.

Someone was donating caravans for people who had lost everything, and I put my hand up to help. Down near the Port of Brisbane, there were about twenty caravans lined up. After a quick briefing, we set off in convoy.

I ended up driving a Mercedes motorhome. It was beautiful, fully set up, but it felt strange knowing what it was for.

When we arrived in Lismore, the scale of it really hit. Piles of furniture and belongings were everywhere. Entire lives stacked up on the street.

We set the caravans up in what used to be a caravan park. You could still see the water line, way up high, almost to the top of the signage.

It might not seem like much, just delivering caravans, but for people who had nothing left, it meant they had somewhere to stay. Somewhere to start again.

In the end, you just do your part. You turn up, you help where you can, and you hope it makes things a little easier for someone.

Another job that stayed with me was during a storm at Forest Lake.

We went to a house where a massive gum tree branch had come straight through the roof. It had just missed an elderly woman’s chair and the TV and landed right in the middle of the room. She’d just come out of hospital and was on oxygen. If it had landed a little closer, it would have hit her.

She was home alone when it happened.

When you walk into something like that, you do everything you can. Removing the branch and covering the roof is one part, but just as important is staying, talking, reassuring, making sure she wasn’t alone until her daughter arrived.

A couple of years later, we were called back to the same house.

A young woman answered the door. As we talked, I mentioned I’d been there before.

She said, “That was my mum. She’s passed; I live here now.”

We just stood there in the driveway and hugged and cried.

It felt like I was meant to be there.

Not every job is like that. Sometimes it’s big public events, like the G20, standing on the side of the road supporting police. It can be quiet, even boring, but then you hear the hum of the motorcade and suddenly the whole convoy comes through.

Other times, it’s something completely different, like St Patrick’s Day, standing on a street corner while a group of drunk young Scotsmen decide you’re “amazing” and come back during the parade just to find you and give you a hug again.

Random, unexpected moments.

People talk about awards and recognition, but that’s never why I do this.

You get certificates and citations, but mine just end up in a drawer somewhere. You feel proud, sure, but it’s not what matters.

The warm and fuzzy moments, that’s what stays with you.

The look on someone’s face when you arrive.

The way their shoulders relax when they realise, they’re not alone.

That makes all the training and hard work worth it.